SELMA — An elderly man in Alabama spent a decade copying out the Bible by hand, then concluded that it was a colossal waste of time.

The effort was meant to be a meaningful act of devotion, but halfway through the book of Revelation, Sam Burbel decided that despite all his effort, nothing would be gained in the end. He finished the project so he could at least have a sense of finality.

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” Sam said. “I rue the day I got the idea to do this.”

The idea first occurred to him ten years ago while he sat in church. He’d just retired from his job in a Honda Motors factory and was looking for a way to “have significance” in his twilight years. He dutifully copied the King James Bible by hand for four hours a day, battling repetitive motion stress and bouts of fatigue.

“He kept at it even on holidays,” says son Curt. “We tried to talk sense into him, but this was his thing.”

The local newspaper ran a story on Sam, and he was pictured in the Reader’s Digest Spanish edition. But copying out the Bible by hand, it turns out, wasn’t the path to meaning he’d hoped.

“I’d encourage young people not to make the same mistake I did by wasting ten good years on a foolish endeavor,” Sam said. “Go learn a skill or something. I hope God forgives me for wasting so much time.” •